An explanation of the muon puzzle of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays and the role of the Forward Physics Facility for model improvement

Abstract

We investigate the observed muon deficit in air shower simulations when compared to ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) data. Based upon the observed enhancement of strangeness production in high-energy hadronic collisions reported by the ALICE Collaboration, the concomitant $\pi \leftrightarrow K$ swap is considered as the keystone to resolve the muon anomaly through its corresponding impact on the shower development. We construct a toy model in terms of the $\pi \leftrightarrow K$ swapping probability $F_s$. We present a parametrization of $F_s$ in terms of the pseudorapidity that can accommodate the UHECR data. Looking to the future, we explore potential strategies for model improvement using the massive amounts of data to be collected by LHC neutrino detectors, such as FASER$\nu$ and experiments at the Forward Physics Facility. We calculate the corresponding sensitivity to $F_s$ and show that these experiments will be able to probe the model phase space.

To be published in JHEAp

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Cited by in corpus (16)

• Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays: The Intersection of the Cosmic and Energy Frontiers
• Testing Hadronic-Model Predictions of Depth of Maximum of Air-Shower Profiles and Ground-Particle Signals using Hybrid Data of the Pierre Auger Observatory
• Investigating the fluxes and physics potential of LHC neutrino experiments
• First Measurement of the Muon Neutrino Interaction Cross Section and Flux as a Function of Energy at the LHC with FASER
• Forward Neutrinos from Charm at Large Hadron Collider
• Science and Project Planning for the Forward Physics Facility in Preparation for the 2024-2026 European Particle Physics Strategy Update
• Discovering neutrino tridents at the Large Hadron Collider
• Sibyll${}^{★}$
• Modeling Strangeness Enhancements to resolve the Muon Excess in Cosmic Ray Extensive Air Shower Data
• Neutrino Detection without Neutrino Detectors: Discovering Collider Neutrinos at FASER with Electronic Signals Only
• Science with the Global Cosmic-ray Observatory (GCOS)
• Neutrino Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider
• Detecting LHC Neutrinos at Surface Level
• Looking forward to forward physics at the CERN's LHC
• The Forward Physics Facility at the High-Luminosity LHC
• Explaining muon excess in cosmic rays using the gluon condensation model